Kane drive to launch car finance

First Auto Finance plans to fill the void left by an exodus of foreign-owned lenders, including GE Money, Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and Lombard

B
illy Kane, Ireland’s king of car finance, is back in business with a new British-backed venture called First Auto Finance.

The company, which offers forecourt credit for private and commercial vehicles, has arranged financing from Close Motor Finance, the third-largest player in Britain.

First Auto Finance plans to fill the void left by an exodus of foreign-owned lenders, including GE Money, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), Lombard and Friends First Finance.

The credit vacuum has led to Volkswagen, BMW and Renault setting up their own finance arms in Ireland to fund sales of their cars. JCB and Massey Ferguson have also established their own finance companies here.

“We recognised a substantial gap in the market caused by the demise of the foreign players and the fact that Irish banks don’t have a lot of money,” said Kane. “It was very hard to get funding though and we’ve been working on this